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November 2011 Dear Friends,
In October and November, nearly 3,000,000 people across Russia venerated the Belt of the Theotokos, brought to Russia for the first time from Mount Athos in Greece. Nearly 1 million people venerated the belt in Moscow alone. Many of them stood in line in bitter cold for over 24 hours. This unprecedented outpouring of religious fervor led to many debates on the Facebook pages and blogs of Russian intellectuals – many of them devout believers themselves – about whether this is a sign of Russia’s transformation, or evidence of a primitive understanding of rituals. Patriarch Kirill warned in a sermon that veneration of relics should not be misinterpreted as some kind of magic rite that leads to the fulfillment of wishes. Certainly, the huge desire of Russians to venerate the Belt of the Theotokos, shows that times have changed in a remarkable but maybe troubling way, and that Religious Books for Russia, with its mission of distributing books that provide a deeper understanding of Orthodoxy, can still reach countless Russians who may never have read the works of Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Fr. John Meyendorff, Fr. Thomas Hopko, Fr. John Breck and Sophie Koulomzin. Thanks to your generous contributions, this is possible! In the day of Internet and e-books, it might seem like access to books should not be an issue, but Sergei Chapnin, the editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, wrote how enlightened he was when he met a provincial priest who was not online but extremely interested in learning about the larger Orthodox world. “Yesterday a young priest from the district center in the Kursk region visited me at our editorial offices,” wrote Chapnin. “He came to Moscow with his entire family for one day to venerate the Belt of the Holy Theotokos and to subscribe to the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. We discussed a number of very different articles that were published in the journal over the past year. I must admit that this meeting left a deep impression on me. I saw a completely new audience that I had not even suspected existed – young, active priests in villages and small towns that don’t use the Internet, but read the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate with interest from cover to cover.” This is RBR’s audience too! With your much appreciated help, we have already been able to reach out to such clergy whom we have found – or who have found us – on an individual basis. Now, with the continued support of your generous donations, and the reach of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, which has a circulation of 20,000, RBR can make a concerted effort to let such wonderful priests know about the books we can provide. Their parishes, far from the glitter of Moscow and the sponsors that can be found in large cities, desperately need books such as Fr. Thomas Hopko’s “The Orthodox Faith” to help guide newcomers to the church, Sophie Koulomzin’s “Zakon Bozhii,” for the religious instruction of children, and Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s “The Eucharist” to help develop an understanding of the central role of the Liturgy and Communion in Orthodox Life. We are planning to include a brochure about RBR in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, through which we will be able to tell such priests, who are doing God’s work often with very little material support, about the books we are able to offer thanks to your many years of faithful support. Once again, everything comes full circle, and the yearning for faith that was evident in the striving of Russians to venerate the Belt of the Theotokos has enabled us to see a new way in which we can reach out to believers across Russia and help make their understanding of the Orthodox faith even deeper. This would not be possible without your generous and steadfast support!
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